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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
An interesting account of the author's experiences... ...but that is all it is. I enjoyed this book but it was not the book I was expecting or hoping for. That said, if Ed Smith had written the book I wanted him to write I suspect that only about 3 people would have read it. I was hoping for a much more technical analysis of the similarities and differences between baseball and cricket. In this respect the book is quite sparse. The view that the equivalent of a batsman in cricket is the pitcher in baseball is interesting (although never really... more info
Ed Smith gets it right Ed Smith's very enjoyable book does a service to both sports - cricket and baseball. As I am a transplanted Yank in England, it helped me understand some of the tactical nuances of test cricket I had not yet penetrated - and it rekindled my nostalgia for baseball.
And it's always refreshing to see a double first at Cambridge put good old Anglo Saxon expressions in writing...
A good intro to the rival for cricket/baseball fans Cricket enthusiasts who have watched any baseball will already know that the two sports share a lot more characteristics that simply hitting a ball with a stick. Most obviously, there is a shared obsession with statistics and tradition. This book lists those shared aspects, but also highlights the contrasts in the sports in an interesting and accessible way. It's a shame Smith did not ponder this fact though: the "brash" American sport has far more unwritten rules about behaviour on the pitch and not... more info
Best introduction to baseball for an Englishman First off I must declare a personal interest in this book. Ed Smith's father taught me English at A-level (a B grade, but I don't hold it against him) and Ed himself was a couple of years below me at school. Nevertheless I assure you this book is well worth the read, even from an impartial point of view.
I read it before a recent trip to California which happily coincided with the 2002 World Series - a rare all-Californian affair. Ed's descriptions of being in a World Series team's hometown during the... more info
